
THURSDAY
11
January 5
Household of Households
Discover
the family imagery in the following texts describing life
in the church: John 20:17; Acts 9:17; Romans 16:1; 1 Corinthians
4:14, 15; Galatians 4:5; 1 Timothy 5:2.
Just as the human family was to reflect the Creator’s relational
nature, so the church is to be an even more exquisite replica of the har-
monious, giving, loving relationship known within the Godhead.
Family terms—birth, adoption, mother, father, sister, brother—pro-
vide a new vocabulary, a whole new way of talking about the human
relationship with God and of human beings with one another.
A template for the church. The Holy Spirit uses common family rela-
tionships to describe a community in which new births are embraced,
diversity is accommodated, strengths are affirmed, and people are
encouraged to grow. If the word family calls up warm feelings for us,
we likely will embrace this view of the church. Sadly for some, family
means painful memories. For these, other images of the church may
have more appeal. Yet, God is a relational Being. He formed humanity
with relational capacities, and it is comforting to know that although
family may fail us, in His church He provides for rest, healing, and
experiences of surpassing family love
(compare Ps. 27:10).
How
does the idea of the church as a household (Gal. 6:10, Eph. 2:19)
open the doors to include everybody?
“Household of faith” calls to mind the sense of belonging that fam-
ilies build in one another and the attitude of neighborliness that has
always characterized well-functioning family relationships. Many
people, who have received Christ individually as their personal
Savior, come as households or families to church. Others attend
alone. In a sense, though, their families are with them, for each has
been shaped by their family experience, and each will always be part
of a family somewhere. Church, then, is quite literally a household of
households, a family of families. The first Christians broke bread
“from house to house”; yet, they were one church
(Acts 2:46, 47). First
Corinthians 12 shows the importance of valuing, incorporating, nur-
turing, and utilizing all the individual parts in the complex organism.
How is your experience of family at church similar to or differ-
ent fr
om y
our present home or the one in which you grew up?
Identify a Christian quality of your current home that could
make a difference in life at your church. What one quality of life
at church would you like to bring home?